Football coaches across the country will tell you they schedule tough nonconference opponents to get their teams prepared for their league wars.

It doesn’t get much tougher for the Arkansas Tech Wonder Boys, who will host No. 10 and NCAA Division II national runner-up Delta State at 6 p.m. Saturday; will host Gulf South Conference member West Alabama on Sept. 24 for Family Day; travel to Warrensburg, Mo., and face Central Missouri on Oct. 1; and come back home to host North Alabama on Oct. 8.

First up is the 10th-ranked Statesmen (2-1), who returned 17 starters from last year’s GSC championship team and are looking for a return trip back to Florence, Ala., and the 2011 D-II national championship game.

Arkansas Tech Head Coach Steve Mullins, in his 15th season with the Wonder Boys, said the team must demonstrate poise and maturity Saturday in order to compete with one of the most talented teams in NCAA Division II.

“Delta State has done a great job recruiting in the Mississippi junior colleges and the California junior colleges,” Mullins said. “They deserve all of the accolades they have received. They play with confidence and aggressiveness. It is beyond important for us to win the mental game. Our guys have to keep their composure and play within themselves.”

The Statesmen are led by senior quarterback Micah Davis, who passed for 4,097 yards and 33 touchdowns last year and guided DSU to an 11-4 record last season. The Statesmen fell just short of the ultimate prize when a final-second field goal by Minnesota-Duluth gave the Bulldogs a 20-17 victory over Delta State in the 2010 NCAA Division II national championship game.

“You can see that he is a confident football player,” Mullins said about Davis. “He knows where to go with the football every time it is snapped. He does a wonderful job with his pre-snap reads and with getting the football out of his hands.”

Arkansas Tech will counter with a defense that forced five turnovers in the Wonder Boys’ 31-20 victory at Southwest Baptist last Saturday.

“It was very pleasing to see the improvement that our defense made from game one to game two,” Mullins said. “The big thing to me is just the confidence factor. We have 10 new starters on defense this year, so they’ve got to come together and have faith that all 11 people are working together like a puzzle. Hopefully the pieces will fit again this week.”

One of the Statesmen’s most important pieces is sophomore linebacker Xavier Triplett. The 2010 GSC defensive freshman of the year already has 6.5 tackles for a loss this season and leads Delta State with 20 tackles.

“When they blitz him, he usually makes good things happen for them,” Mullins said when asked about Triplett. “The thing that stands out about him is that he is an instinctive player. He’s just as dangerous when they don’t blitz him because of his ability to run people down from behind and the good decisions he makes throughout the course of a game.”

Big plays fueled the Arkansas Tech offense last Saturday. The Wonder Boys scored on passing plays of 10, 33, 44 and 64 yards as true freshman quarterback Preston Conder became the first Tech player since Nick Graziano on Nov. 14, 2009, to throw four or more touchdown passes in a game. Tech built a 31-7 lead early in the third quarter, but the Wonder Boys were limited to four first downs and 102 total yards in the game’s last 26 minutes.

“Our youth and our decision making have made it difficult for us to be consistent offensively,” Mullins said. “Unfortunately, Delta State’s defense also tends to stop consistency. What we must do is be patient and take what they give us. We have to chip away and maintain the football.”

Activities kick off at 4 p.m. Saturday with the return of the Party at the Plaza, the pre-game tailgating celebration outside Thone Stadium at Buerkle Field. Game tickets will be available at the gate. Those bearing a valid Arkansas Tech identification card will be admitted free.

The game can be heard locally on KWKK 100.9 FM and online at athletics.atu.edu.